Target Half Price Blaster Saturday - 2008 Bowman Football

I know what you're thinking, how could I be buying blasters when I bought all that stuff at the Blowout Cards Black Friday Sale yesterday. Well, trust me, I thought the same thing. Although, the cards from Blowout won't arrive until Tuesday at the earliest. So this purchase is justified... right?

Anyway, I went to Target specifically looking for 50% off blasters. I wasn't going to buy anything that was full price today. I settled on two blasters of 2008 Bowman Football because the only other choices were 2008 Upper Deck Heroes Football and 2008 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball. I've been on a football kick lately so I figured I'd stick with it. I also needed to see if the two 2008 Bowman Football Hobby boxes I got from Blowout are worth opening.

To my surprise, the "One Authentic Memorabilia Card" they mention on the front of the box is a 2008 Topps Rookie Premiere Jersey card. I just figured it would be a jersey card from the 2008 Bowman set. As you'll see below, I did very well on these. I got a Matt Ryan and a Joe Flacco. I can't complain about that at all.

As for the rest of the cards, nothing exciting. You basically get two Bowman rookies, one Bowman base, one Bowman Gold and one Bowman Chrome rookie per pack. I also ended with two Bowman Blue cards, each numbered to 500. The best card I got out of all of that was a Tim Hightower Bowman Chrome rookie. There really wasn't anything else exciting. I thought it was really funny that one of my Bowman Blue cards was Tony Sparano. I didn't know they made coach cards in this set.

The Bowman/Bowman Chrome design is boring to me. The Bowman singles have black borders and many of them have chipping straight out of the pack. I'd have been very disappointed with the condition if I'd paid full price. Bottom line, I'm not a fan of this product at all and won't be opening the boxes from Blowout. Those will be Christmas gifts or eBay items.

Blowout Cards Black Friday Purchases

The Blowout Cards Black Friday sale is still going strong but I figured I'd post my purchases to this point.

2 - 2008 Upper Deck Goudey Baseball Retail Box @ $11.27 ea.
6 - 2008 Topps Football Fat Pack Box @ $9.99 ea.
3 - 2008 Leaf Rookies & Stars Football Retail Box @ $9.99 ea.
2 - 2003 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Baseball Hobby Box @ $29.95 ea.
1 - 2007 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Football Hobby Box @74.95 ea.
2 - 2008 Topps Series 1 Baseball Jumbo HTA Box @ $11.27 ea.
1 - 2007 Topps Triple Threads Football Hobby Box @ $119.95 ea.
1 - 2007 Bowman Chrome Football Hobby Box @ $11.27 ea.
2 - 2008 Bowman Football Hobby Box @ $11.27 ea.
2 - 2007 Leaf Limited Football hobby Box @ $59.95 ea.
2 - 2007 Upper USA Nationals Team Baseball Box Set @ $42.90 ea.

I love that they're putting a lot of 2007 Football products on sale. Adrian Peterson rookies are fun to go after.

Head on over to their site before the sale is over. They're doing an amazing job of posting a huge variety of products at amazing prices. Thank you Blowout!

Allen & Ginter George Washington DNA Relic Hits eBay

One of a supposed three 2007 Allen & Ginter George Washington DNA Strand of Hair Relics has surfaced on eBay.

The seller claims that one of these sold for between $30,000 - $40,000 in a private auction. I never heard that and find it hard to believe. It will be very interesting to keep an eye on this and see what it gets up to. The seller has a reserve so my bet is that bidding never reaches that amount.

Either way, it's an amazing card and one that's rarely ever seen. I cannot imagine the rush of pulling something like this from a pack. It would certainly make up for a lifetime of bad box breaks.

Link to the auction here

Cameron Maybin TTM Success

Date sent: 3/4/09
Date received: 10/30/09

This is another recent TTM return that I had pretty much written off. I sent it way back during spring training. On top of that, Maybin carries a 12% success rate for members of sportscollectors.net.

I'm not sure what made my request stand out but I got it back and I couldn't be happier.

I've followed Maybin ever since he was part of the trade that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers. I'd heard that Maybin was the key to the deal for the Marlins. I wondered what made this kid so special so I kept an eye on him. He's yet to live up to his 5-tool can't miss potential but he's still only 22 years old.

Maybin made the team last year out of spring training but the Marlins sent him down to AAA in early May as he was batting .2o2. They brought him back up on September 1st and he remained on the team through the final game. In that time he raised his batting average to .250 and hit three home runs.

Hopefully Maybin will make the Marlins out of spring training again and stick around for the whole season.

Half Price Target Blaster Sunday

You'd think with all the stuff that I've opened lately that I'd be content. Well, that's just not the case so I headed to a couple Target stores this morning. I picked up five blasters of 2008 Upper Deck Football. They're part of the 50% off boxes so they were only $9.99 each. That comes out to $1.00 per pack and you're guaranteed a jersey card. I'll take those odds.

You get two Star Rookies per pack so you end up with 20 rookies per box. It's a very large set of rookies. There are 100 in the base set and then 25 more in the SP set. You also have the chance to pull the Target exclusive Star Rookies. All in all, I got one SP rookie and three Target Star Rookies out of the five boxes. Luckily, the SP was Desean Jackson and on of the Target Star Rookies was Joe Flacco. From the base rookies the highlights were two Flacco, two Forte, two Mendenhall and one Chris Johnson. You get one Starquest card per pack as well. You end up with all sorts of color as there are five different colors in that set.

Here's how I did:

UD Rookie Jersey (4)
Ray Rice Gold /350
Limas Sweed Gold /350
Desean Jackson
Jordy Nelson

Team Colors Jersey (1)
Philip Rivers Gold /299

Target Exlusive Rookies (3)
Joe Flacco
Antoine Cason
Kenny Phillips

SP Rookie Card (1)
Desean Jackson

Masterpieces Preview (2)
Franco Harris

Starquest (50, one per pack)
Check the pics below for the highlights.

2009 Bowman Chrome Football Case Break - Boxes #7, 8, 9 and 10

In a word, ugh. This case was definitely a disappointment. The biggest disappointment had to be getting doubles of autographed rookies twice. I ended up with two Nate Davis and two Andre Brown. Obviously had they been two Mark Sanchez and two Knowshon Moreno I wouldn't be complaining.

I gathered up the cards that were worth grading and sent them off to BGS today to take advantage of their half price grading special. I was surprised how many of the cards had scratches or lines on the surface. I had to hold a few back because of that, most notably the Mark Sanchez refractor.

I was able to put together two complete sets. I'll be putting those up on eBay unless someone reading is interested. They've been going in the $40 range on eBay so that's what I was hoping to get. Leave a comment if you want one.

I also got ten severely off-centered cards in one of my boxes. Luckily none of them were rookies or cards of any value. I mailed them back to Topps just to see if they'll replace them. I've never sent damaged cards for replacement so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Here are the last four boxes:

Box 7

Autographed Rookie: Brandon Tate

Box Topper: Donald Brown Silver

Gold Refractor: Jason Smith RC

Green Refractor: James Davis RC

Xfractor: Mike Thomas RC, Lamarr Woodley

Refractors: Johnny Knox RC, Joseph Addai, Matt Cassell, Felix Jones

Notable Rookies: Kenny Britt, LeSean McCoy, Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno, Darrius Heyward-Bey



Box 8

Autographed Rookie: Brian Hartline Orange Refractor!

Box Topper: Louis Murphy Silver

Gold Refractor: Oshiomogho Atogwe

Xfractor: LeSean McCoy RC, Matt Ryan

Refractors: Brian Robiskie RC, Shonn Greene RC, Warrick Dunn, Braylon Edwards, Fred Taylor

Notable Rookies: Mark Sanchez, Percy Harvin, Jeremy Maclin, Hakeem Nicks, Donald Brown, Johnny Knox, Chris Wells



Box 9

Autographed Rookie: Johnny Knox

Box Topper: Mohamed Massaquoi Bronze

Green Refractor: Calvin Johnson

Blue Refractor: Brandon Tate RC

Xfractor: Laveranues Coles

Refractors: Tyson Jackson RC, Randy Moss, Jared Allen, Marshawn Lynch

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree



Box 10

Autographed Rookie: Andre Brown (case starts and ends with him)

Box Topper: Tom Brandstater Bronze

Blue Refractor: Frank Gore, Fred Taylor

Xfractor: Jared Allen

Refractors: Brandon Gibson RC, Trent Edwards, Marc Bulger, Jay Cutler

Notable Rookies: Mark Sanchez, Percy Harvin, Jeremy Maclin, Hakeem Nicks, Donald Brown, Johnny Knox, Chris Wells

2009 Bowman Chrome Football Case Break - Boxes #4, 5 and 6

Well, things turned around a bit on these three boxes. The highlights were the Jeremy Maclin Blue Refractor Autograph the Brian Orakpo Orange Refractor and the Mark Sanchez Refractor. The low point was the second Nate Davis autograph in six boxes. We'll see how the last four boxes go tomorrow.

Box 4

Autographed Rookie: Jeremy Maclin Blue Refractor

Box Topper: Austin Collie Bronze

Gold Refractor: Bernard Berrian

Blue Refractor: Matt Ryan

Xfractor: James Davis RC, Jason Witten

Refractors: Derrick Williams RC, Mohamed Massaquoi RC, Willis McGahee, Maurice Jones-Drew, Derek Anderson

Notable Rookies: LeSean McCoy, Chris Wells, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Kenny Britt, Knowshon Moreno, Matthew Stafford



Box 5

Autographed Rookie: Nate Davis

Box Topper: Brian Robiskie Bronze

Gold Refractor: Dwayne Bowe

Blue Refractor: Reggie Bush

Xfractor: Steve Slaton

Refractors: Mark Sanchez RC, Carson Palmer, Chad Pennington, Greg Jennings

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree



Box 6

Autographed Rookie: Curtis Painter

Box Topper: Kenny Britt Silver

Orange Refractor: Brian Orakpo RC

Green Refractor: Darren McFadden

Xfractor: Malcolm Jenkins RC, Matt Cassell

Refractors: Brian Cushing RC, Rhett Bomar RC, Greg Camarillo, Terrell Owens, Michael Turner

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree